In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend…if I may flatter myself that they may…warn against the impostures of pretended patriotism—this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare by which they have been dictated.

Called the “Father of His Country,” George Washington, general and commander in chief of the colonial armies in the American Revolution (1775–83) and first president of the United States (1789–97), was born this day in 1732.